To all tape readers:
Today began like the previous week. Quiet, controlled, a few
looking to buy, very few looking to sell. MMs pushed back the
buying by opening the ask high but got some FTEL buyers when
they dropped it to 4.625 around 11:30. It had been quiet up to
this point with the MMs simply loading up their inventory, but
it was nice to see them having to go to 4.63 to do so. 12,700
shares were bought by the MMs in the first couple of hours,
half at 4.50 and half at 4.63.
This is when the MMs dropped their ask and attacted some buying.
In the next two and one-half hours there were twelve trades
totalling 12,600 shares. Only 900 of these shares were sold to
the MMs. The rest were all buying! And this pressure continued.
But the last 20 minutes unleashed a gale force which, if the
same pace continued all day, would have had a volume of over
800,000 that day. The MMs tried to temper this force by, in the
final twenty minutes, moving their ask up to 4.69, then to 4.75,
then to 4.81, then to 4.88, then to 4.94. But the buying never
stopped!!
And, they didn't move up the bid!!!??? In this 20 minutes, there
were 23 trades totalling 36,900 shares. Four of these trades, only
four, were sales to the MM and these four trades totalled 12,000
shares. What were they selling? Why didn't they move the bid up to
take on some more inventory? In other words, what is their strategy
relating to what they expect tomorrow? I will have to defer to
Raleigh's insight on this point. My expectation would have seen a
higher bid but my observation didn't.
And so the day ended with obvious and sustained pressure through
to the final bell. This has been expected as anticipatory buying
and insider leaks will fuel the energies of significant dollars.
Its always interesting to see how much this buying precedes the
formal news release. And, as the last flagpole was created, its
nice to see a commitment from large amounts of money towards
positioning at a certain level in a stock.
Tomorrow's opening will tell us how close we are to that news. Can
we expect a gap-up or will it open with continuous sustained upward pressure? They're at the gate, and they're off.........
'Til tomorrow..... |
